Monday, August 18, 2014

Hi all, this is Christi and I am thrilled to bring you my very first challenge for Craft-Room Challenges! Some of you may know I am crazy cat woman. I might not qualify just yet, but with five furry felines, I am definitely on my way. The last cat we acquired was brought home when my significant other went to Petco (a large pet store chain) to get some more cat litter and food. Petco will often show some cats from our local shelter in order to help them get adopted, especially during the summer months when people want kittens and cats older than one year often get over looked. Well, when I got the phone call the he was bringing home a surprise for "me & the cats" I figured it wasn't food or any crafty goodies - sure enough, it was Sylvester who was our surprise. How could I stay mad? So, Sylvester joined our happy family of other felines, Monster, Mew, Bud and Junior. Sorry for the ramble, but when I start talking about my children cats, I find it hard to stop! Anyway, I decided to honor my growing brood , I choose CATS as my challenge theme for challenge #83 at Craft-Room Challenges. I can't wait to see the projects you come up with, and keep in mind you can create anything as long as you follow the theme.

Now, I present my project. I love making wall hangings and I love quotes, so I incorporated three of my favorite things and came up with this canvas.

I have tons of cat and pet papers and embellishments that I have been saving for years. My goal is to some day make a scrapbook of all my furbabies, both past & present. My major problem is I am not a scrapbooker and I find it very difficult to make myself sit down and create a layout. I am confident that someday I will do it - well, let's say it is on my list. So first thing I did was go through my cat papers and I chose to use a paper from Pets by Memory Makers called "Cat Words" as my focal paper. Since the 14" canvas is too wide for the 12 x 12 paper to fit, I cut off 2 strips from another paper in the same collection called "Cat Paws". I attached the strips to the main page using tape on the backside.

Paper with the added sides

Close Up

Next I set about finding a font I wanted to work with. Since the quote is fairly long I wanted the words to weld together and be easier to work with. I have hundreds of fonts I have collected and after trying a few out I settled on using Lobster 2 (which is a great font to use with any electronic cut machine - I have to thank Clever Someday for compiling list after list of good fonts as well as being an invaluable resource). When my words were cut out, I used washi tape to keep the letters that were not welded with the words they belonged to. I also use the tape to keep the letters and punctuation properly spaced so when I attach them to the canvas they are evenly spaced (mostly).

I found a plethora of cat cut files, as well as some I made into cut files and chose the ones I felt wouldn't be too complicated to scale down. I am terrible at measuring and often just use my eye so I wasn't sure how big my vats were going to turn out - I figured the simpler the better. After I had a page full of my cats all ready to be cut out, I decided to use white card for them. I had originally had thoughts of making them all kinds of cat colors, but, knowing myself I would have taken that even further and had to make calico's, tabby's, etc., which would of caused me a whole 'nother level of stress over my inability to make them as good as I saw them in my minds eye. Again, I am learning that, at least for now, simpler is better. So we have white cats.

Fiddling with the Layout - placing words & cats

After putting on the lettering (with removable tape) I set about fiddling with the cats, after finally cutting out a size I felt fit the project. I have enough white cat cut outs to serve my white cat cut out needs for quite a while. Maybe I'll practice making them cat colors? Anyway, with a little help from a good friend (who I can trust will put a bit more into her thoughts about a project than saying "Oh, yeah. That's cool.") I was able to finalize the design and glue it all down. This is where the toothpicks become indispensable. I use them for spreading glue, for getting glue on those teeny tiny areas and for getting glue out of those other teeny tiny areas. I can't live without them!

So there you have it - "Cats are like potato chips, you can't have just one". A quote that I am living proof of. I hope you enjoyed my tutorial and get inspired to join us at Craft-Room Challenges with your own cat inspired project! Remember, our challenge is on for two weeks - plenty of time to join. Thanks! Christi

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Challenge #38 at Anything But a Card is the theme of Repeating Motifs and/or Patterns. I had just been going through some of my stamps (which I confess are in boxes right now) and I came across some of the more "artsy" stamps that I have. I had forgotten how beautiful they were, and how perfect some of them would be for the theme. So, along with my favorite color palette, I chose my stamp and away I went! Let me share my Shades of Blue wall hanging with with you.

I cut apart the images just so I could get a better sense of which ones I actually wanted to use in the project.

Trimmed Squares & Strips

Once I had chosen the final 9, the next step was to trim them so they'd be close to the same size and then I cut each square stamped with the stamp into three strips. After that I fooled at bit with the placement of strips, using three strips at a time to reconstruct the stamp. I had found an old piece of mat board and I trimmed it to 9" x 9", and then covered it with navy blue cardstock which was also trimmed to size. After deciding the placement of the reconstructed squares

Restructured Squares (color is off, sorry!)

- I didn't want to have 2 strips of the same color next to each other - I glued them all down and there you have it ~ Shades of Blue!

Another View

I do have to put some sort of protective coating on it - if you have any ideas of what I should use, please share - but after that I plan to hang it in my kitchen where my colors are green, blue and white (although it's hard to tell <grin>). I hope you enjoyed my tutorial and my final project. There is still plenty of time to join in on the challenge at Anything But a Card and I hope to see you there. Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you have an artful week! Christi

Monday, August 4, 2014

For the 82nd challenge at Craft-Room Challenge, Hazel has chosen the theme of "A Summer Garden". Once again, I had lofty plans of all the incredible art I was going to create when I realized I was running out of time once again. Truthfully, as I write this the challenge is almost 1 1/2 weeks away, but I am having major dental surgery at the end of July and I am scrambling like mad to try to ensure all my Design Team work is done. So by the time you read this I will be happily recuperating because I should be heavily medicated and it will be over and done with. But I digress. . .

Confused? Read on. . .KaiserCraft on the left, DCWV on the right

What I Used to Create my Card(s):

2 coordinating pieces of DCWV Linen Closet Stack

1 piece KaiserCraft Lady Rose Collection, Champagne

1 piece Green paper, for base of KaiserCraft card

Wendy Vecchi Archival Ink by Ranger in Fern Green

Wendy Vecchi Blooming Art stamp set, SCS119, for sentiment

White Cardstock for label

Crafters Pick The Ultimate Glue

A2 Pop Up Card - Artisan (Silhouette or Lori Whitlock store)

Silhouette Cameo

The final card

The base card (DCWV)

As you know by now I love making 3D things and I had found this card in the Silhouette store named "A2 Pop Up Card - Artisan", which was designed by Lori Whitlock (you can purchase the cut file through the Silhouette store or on the Lori Whitlock site). It looked like fun and I also love using labels so this was a win win for me! I purchased the card and opened it up in my Silhouette Studio DE to figure out how to piece the card out for cutting. Now, I know the challenge is Summer Garden, and I truly thought I could use the paper I initially picked out, which was DCWV Linen Closet Stack (I had some 6" x 12" scraps and I was happy that I could make the card with those). There are some awesome florals in that stack - very sparkly, glittery and pretty. It really wasn't until I was almost done with the card that I realized the paper wasn't summery at all. While the paper is indeed sparkly, glittery and pretty, it definitely isn't summery; at least it isn't to me. So I went and chose some KaiserCraft paper, the collection is called Lady Rose, perfect for "A Summer Garden". So, I proceeded to make another card.

The cover card stock, on my cutting mat (DCWV)

Well, I had taken all my pictures using the DCWV paper, so now you'll get to see two different versions of the card. What I think is really neat about the card is that it stands on it's own and yet, when it is folded in, it still fits in an A2 envelope. I also kept the cover card stock in place as I took it off my cutting mat, in fact, I adhered each piece to the base card as I removed the it to ensure I'd have no pattern upset. I also resized the label down a bit to make the white label that I stamped and put on the front of the KaiserCraft card. Wendy Vecchi's ink matched that green base card perfectly! See, I truly DO need all of those ink pads!

View from the top of the card (KasierCraft)

When I make the card again, I think I'll put 2 of the white labels together (fold over, like a place card) so if I want to write something "in" the card I'll have a space to do it in. All in all I am excited about how simple it was to put these together and I immediately thought of holiday cards - how pretty would some festive Christmas or Chanukah paper would look! And with my "place card" idea the structure of the card would still be the same and I can write a little note on each card. Or, even Halloween!! Wouldn't a bat be adorable in place of the label?!? Oh yes, the ideas are rolling in. . .

And a final look - the colors aren't as bright in this picture for some reason. They are truer in the other pictures.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope my directions weren't too confusing. Please, feel free to contact by using the Contact Form on the side bar, or leave me a comment if you have any questions. In fact, leave me a comment even if you don't have any questions (and leave your blog address in your comment so I can stop by your blog!) Also, please pop by Craft-Room Challenges and enter!! Fabulous new challenge every 2 weeks ~ Have a wonderful day ~ Christi